Kabar's First Forum Contest :D

Moosez45

Moosez45

Custom Antlers, Factory Knives...
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Jul 14, 2010
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Yeah, you know me. Loves my contests.

So here's the deal, write down your best Kabar Story. Please make sure they are as factual as you can remember. Granpa in the War, brother in the sand, on a hog hunt, shot a deer, got mugged at the Stop and Rob, whatever, just make sure there is a Kabar story in there. Contest runs until I decide its over, probably a couple of weeks.

Must be 18, legally able to own a knife, you are responsible for yourself, and only you, neither BFC, Kabar, or me are responsible for your actions. If you can't buy it, don't break it.

Winner gets a,

1217_large.jpg


Kabar USMC Fighting/Utility knife, Model 1217

Lets hear about these awesome knives.

Moose
 
Toooj knows my old facility chief. He was in a firefight while deployed during Operation Iraqi Freedom. He took a round to the Ka Bar he had hanging on the side of his vest where the plates didn't cover. The Ka Bar ricocheted the bullet but broke in two. My SFC called Ka Bar and told them his story and they sent him another blade to replace the one that saved his life.
 
cool!

this is the story of a small kabar slip joint i've been told (by my dad)

so as a small kid, he goes to a park to have a fun relaxing day. with his small kabar pocket knife (didnt leave anywhere without it) he has a fun day, and when he gets home and is emptying his pockets before bed, he realizes... no kabar! :eek: :( gone like a tear in the rain.

time goes by and the sadness subsides. and 2 years later he goes back to the same park. during his day he sees something shiny near a tree. he goes to pick it up and lo and behold. its the same kabar he lost 2 years prior! :eek: what are the odds that no one else found it in that whole time?

he still has it to this day. i'll snap a picture later. if this wins my dad will get the kabar :thumbup:

here is the wayward kabar!

kabarslipjoint1.jpg


kabarslipjoint2.jpg


as you can see its a tiny little bugger

kabarslipjoint3.jpg
 
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I had one identical to the one you are giving away and I loved it. I used to throw it at plywood and it would stick really well. It would even knock holes when it hit butt first. It was one tough knife. With the abuse that I put it through it never bent or broke. Somebody broke in my house and stole it and some other stuff among which was a 27" TV(the old kind). The best part about it was that when they stole the tv they ripped the coax connector out of the back. Hell, they probably herniated a disk or something toting it out in the dark down them slippery stairs. I wasn't really "living right" at the time so I probably deserved the loss, and I was mistreating the knife too.

Here is another one:
My wife is supportive of all my hobbies, but not too enthusiastic about them. One day we were in Gander Mountain and I was looking at the knives. She was behind me as usual, but she fell behind(normally she pushes me along). I turned to see what held her up and she was staring at a knife. It must have been the first knife that she had ever really noticed. She said "I really like this one." I don't know the model # butthe one she was talking about was a tanto with a combo edge, smaller than the 1217, and all black. I was surprised that she actually liked a knife. I asked what she liked about it, and she said it looks mean. Then she said "If I ever had to kill someone, that is the knife I would use." HAHA
 
Cool Contest! I'll take a swing.

A long time member of the family, recently gave my son her Brother's pocket knives. He was in the Air Corp during WW2, and saved his crew by landing the B-52 (EDIT: Sorry, Noticed That The B-52 Wasn't Made Yet, He Flew A B-29) he was flying over Germany. The man, carried two knives- An old Imperial slip-joint, and a Kabar slip-joint. That Kabar traveled over Germany, France and Britain, and still remains in awesome condition. At one point, the man lost it when his plane went down . Luckily, it was found by one of the crew-members, on the floor, when it flew out of his pocket. The man, when WW2 ended, was being shipped back home, and unfortunately, the plane had some malfunctions, and went down. He died that day. Again, when his body was shipped back, all that was left were two of his medals, his dog tags, and both of his pocket knives. They sure went through hell and back. My son was extremely happy when they were gifted to him. He treasures both. After all the man went through, I'm surprised that little slip-joint wasn't lost, after all the travels he made.
 
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No real warm and fuzzy story to tell, but a pretty cool knife that I came about by accident. Bought a beater knife at a garage sale when I was about 19. I spent the next 15 years abusing it about every way possible, then one day found a WW2 stamp on the blade. I researched it and found that it was a Camillus made MKII that, with a little touch up, is a true beauty! Best part, it still gets regular abuse and use, and it makes me love it even more. Nothing that knife isn't good for.
 
I got my first Kabar when I was 19. It was our (my 3 friends and I) first trip to Gatlinburg for college spring break. Of course, chasing girls was a big priority, but that was for the nights. The days were spent in the mountains. We were camping at Elkmont. We hiked trails all day long, then would clean up to cruise around in Gatlinburg.

Being the knife nut I've always been, there was NO way that we were passing Smoky Mountain Knife Works without stopping in. Having seen the Marine Kabar #1217 in several of my catalogs (this was pre-internet days) from various stores, I was really wanted to check one out. I was shocked. They didn't have one. I guess they were out of stock. It was 16 years ago, so I can't even remember if the store was set-up the same way it is now. Maybe they didn't even carry Kabar back then? Anyway, I looked at lots of stuff, but didn't buy anything. I REALLY wanted that Kabar. When we hit downtown G-burg, there were several knife and gift stores there and I found one in a nice little shop. I paid too much for it, compared to what I'd seen in my catalogs, but I wanted that knife.

I carried that knife all over the national park that week. It rode on my hip all day, every day. It didn't get a lot of real hard use, just campy stuff. I carved some stuff with it, did some batoning just to see what it was like, got wood ready for the fire. Stuff like that. I'd brought my Lanky with me, so it was shaving sharp. For kicks, I used it to make sandwiches and stuff. It did "save" us one day. My buddy locked his keys in his Ranger with the motor running. Since I was the only one with a knife (much like today!) I used the Kabar to pop open the rear sliding window so he could slide inside the truck. He was a skinny guy, 6'0 and 110 lbs.

On the last day, we were packing up stuff. I had the knife sitting out on the picnic table so it could ride in the cab on the way home. We got everything stowed, and not thinking, we jumped in the truck and took off. About an hour later, I realized I didn't have the knife with me. I figured that one of the guys saw it and tossed it in with the rest of the gear. We got home a few hours later, and lo and behold, no knife! Yes, I left that knife sitting on the picnic table at Elkmont Campgound. I was pissed and heartbroken at the same time. The other guys all thought I grabbed it, so they never mentioned it on the way home. It was like a spring break fling with a knife, LOL.

I've had a couple others over the years and traded them for other things. Next one I get is going into my storage chest and staying there.
 
My dad has a kabar he carried during the vietnam war and it's pretty old and rough looking. when I was a kid and first started hunting he taught me how to skin a deer. He always used a Buck 110, but all I had were smaller slip joints. I remember him going inside and coming out with the old kabar and handing it to me. So that's the knife I used to skin my first deer.
 
The rules said nothing about dual story's so I hope that this is alright.

Story #1
I owned that very knife, this is the short story of how it saved me and was taken away from me at the same time.

It all started when there was a crazy guy screaming stuff (mostly political nonsensical rambling) on the light rail train I was riding, I asked him nicely to be quite cause everyone on the train was increasing getting bothered, he freaked out and started yelling at me but lucky he got off at the next stop.

Fast forward a few weeks, at the time was grocery shopping with my girl friend and I had my KaBar USMC knife on my belt when sure enough he ran into me and started yelling at me, I told him to go f*** Off and he pulled out a little tiny folding knife on me, I pulled out my KaBar and I think right then from the look on his face he felt like he no longer had an edge on me at all. My thinking was great I'm going to get into a knife fight in the grocery store and go to jail.

Long story short he never had an in store knife fight, be we had a knife fight stand off for the most part, freaked a lot of people out and when the police came and saw that tape that said I was in the right and no charges would be pressed but they took my knife as evidence in the case and said I could get it back. I called time after time to get my knife back but eventually I was told that it was "Missing" or "Misplaced" and I never did get it back.

Story #2
This story if from the start of 2011 when my KaBar BK2 pretty much saved me.

As some of you may or may not know I have been EDCing my BK2 for almost a year now and I know some people think it's silly to have such a large knife on your belt day in and day out but today just having it defused what could have been a super shitty situation.

Here is the picture myself and my girlfriend are house sitting someones apartment for a few weeks but we can not park in the parking lot so I have been parking my Jeep and she has been parking her work van on the street. This afternoon I go out to the Jeep to look for screw that ironically enough fell off my new sheath for my BK2 and I am looking for it in the Jeep when all of a sudden I get tapped on the back and I freak out and jump up!

It's the guy who owns the house that we parks on the street in front of and he says "You need to move your Jeep and van now" I say "what? who the hell are you?" this goes back and forth a bit and he is stepping closer to me and he has his right hand pulled up in the sleeve of his jacket so I can't see his right hand and he has an aggressive stance and all I could think of was "f*** hes got a gun or something" so I put my hand on my BK2 and pull it up just a bit so it unlocks from the Kydex, at which point he shows his right hand and he just has a big rock and is all like "sorry I just get sick of people from the apartment building parking in front of my place" and kind of walks away.

I then went and moved the the Jeep and Van and all I could think was holy shit this guy was going to hit me in the head from behind cause I parked in front of his house on the street in the city for a few days.

Thank god I had a somewhat large knife with me like my BK2!
 
When I was about 7-8 years old I was bugging my Dad to by me one of those survival knives that I kept seeing in commercials on TV. You know the one with the hollow handle that a "survival kit" came in and had a screw on cap with a compass. He would try and explain how much of a piece of crap it was and that someday I would get a "real" knife. When I showed I was grown up enough to respect a good knife and use it wisely.

He ended up passing down the Kabar that my Grandfather carried during his time in the Military. I got it for Christmas the year I earned my Toten-Chip in Boy Scouts and I was so darned proud to have that knife. I was born a little over a year after my Grandfather passed away so I did not get to meet him but I was told of the great man that he was.

When I was 15 my older cousin who I was very close with moved with his family to the East Coast and I sent Grandpa's knife along with him. As far as I know he still has it. We lost touch a long time ago, if he still has it I hope it is still serving him well.
 
Alright, good stories ya'll.

Winner is Snakedoc.

Getting a family Kabar as your first knife, and your 'ol man making sure you were heading in the right direction.

Email me your address, put Kabar Contest in the title please.

Moose
 
A bunch of good stories. I enjoyed reading them. Congrats man, use it in good health.
 
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